foodchain

I don’t think you can frame it like that. I would just like to suggest that out of the confusion which generates so much fuss, how can you equate some understanding or a logic as correct. As you sort of put it with reference to two different objects we can frame stuff that occurs as natural, but we have noting to compare it to save the universe we currently occupy, so really I would think this understanding is purely environmental. This term I think serves a better purpose.

I think it comes down to what cant be done away as a product of human thought. Such as how many words exists to describe a small rock, this does not pertain physically though to whatever the rock is, regardless if you want to view it as a collection of various elements or made by some supernatural entity the rock persists, so it comes to a point I guess in which you accept that reality exists and you are just a part in it. The other option is to say what? I don’t think any possible answer is possibly to comprehend let alone with science.

I think then if you would accept such a stance, how would you go about ever saying you do understand, ultimately being you have to think with your brain about a physical world or natural world, what would you accept as anything close to truth about it. As for an approximation I would think science tends to do the best currently, regardless of philosophical ramifications for whatever is produced. I do not see anything else producing results that I would accept, I do not base this on words but its ability to function in say reality.

I think the real way to test science though is to see how polymorphic its answers are, this is why I hate Descartes and view a more integrated or whole model of science as beneficial overall rather then isolated fields of inquiry. Simply put I think having segregated science is like studying bits and pieces of a whole, but never caring about the whole. This is why I think hybrid fields like biogeochemistry and nice because you have three distinct disciplines being able to work in concert scientifically producing results and evidence. I would think that the possibility for that to exist suggests again a natural world that can be understood.

So in closing, even with math you are still dealing with something logical as it pertains to humans, and of course I think you are still stuck with trying to model reality with math and in general cant just sit in a room and make the universe equation that explains everything.

What is the differentiation of microbial life from say primarily relying on say geologic activity rather then biological activity? Does this occur at some point in time possibly from selection pressures, and if this exists does it fall in the timeline in which maybe eukaryotes or multicellular life was possibly starting to come about? Can any major metabolic pathways show any proof?

Do you think instead of a year typically in each of the natural sciences in undergraduate education for environmental science that maybe two years of biogeochemistry would be better suited? Such as you had a year of elementary science using such, and more advanced coursework on basically biogeochemistry as a discipline?

I think it would be better to make the science learned more applied early on, and with environmental science being a integrated science, I think this would be better as it would also allow for more time to spent with say mathematics, and social sciences and or studies as it pertains to environmental science.

If you are for instance a chemistry major, or a physics major, you have a very concentrate or focused major, yet with environmental science, the curriculum has to be highly interdisciplinary which still requiring the students to succeed. So if you are a student of environmental science, and you have to equate say shipping with a particular piece of ecology, how well could a person do that’s realistic to all the parts really as they would break down to just chemistry or physics?

but i understand as people say that there is layer of nickel equaly managed out side the earth. but there are different different pockets of mineral in crust of earth. i understand that different differnt pockets of mineral seems odd than heavier lighter theory.pls re think by your self honestly. pls trust on yourself only that it looks practical. even if practical, we 100% surely can not say earth is dead, because same minerals pockets are available in alive things and they are not from heavier lighter process.

Yes, the earth has differentiated in time due to various forces like gravity. Its core, or active core I think produces a dynamo effect which brings about the magnetosphere, which protects us from the deadly solar winds! I guess you can say the earth has evolved in time, but I think this is as close as it gets to being life, besides being natural.

I think some new form of a nano scale phenomena has been found in some geologic activity, but its basically carbon based and appears to be completely devoid of life, yet it still gets some attention in regards to origin of life issues.

Of course, he'd probably have already nabbed OBL all on his own.

I think the problem with OBL is that it brings conflict into say Pakistan, which then include more of the geography like India. Plus I do not think Pakistan was put in the axis of evil, I also think we work with them, or at least that Pakistan is slightly more then neutral most the time with us. I mean Pakistan is not considered much I think for invasion.

I also think you then deal with an entire front of operations or whatever the military calls it that will require X amount of personal for however long. Which to keep what is currently running, such as Iraq and Afghanistan and everything else in support of that running would require a lot, I would tend to think draft would be required as standards to enlist can now allow felons on a waiver.

For consumers or predators would simple abundance played a role in fitness and continue to do so? I mean if you reduce what a species can eat rapidly I think the impacts would be bad, but on that note could specie to specie fitness in such a relationship, such as predator to prey help a predatorial species by simply staying fit?

Such as if a Thompsons gazelle became a lazy specie that could not run very fast, I think it would be easy to think predators making such a specie extinct rather quick, but then that could be disaster for any predatorial specie, simply put what do you eat? This is a problem for bigger cats such as tigers in ever shrinking regions of habitable land.

So to reduce to something more abstract, if you say had to have a energy minimum to support some function, and that function could variate to mimic say variance in organisms, would not predation have a certain fitness to it based on a minimum if you look at its prey?

So I would think that any time I would be looking for a predatorial animal, I could think about population densities of possible prey in relation to any projected or hypothetical behavior. Such as if I wanted to study the life history of some predator species, such as lions, would existing populations of possible prey be a good place to look?

Who's going to take the bill?

 

I'd love to see it cleaned up, but who is going to pay? All the more reason for the USA, EU, Asean etc to gradually unite and become a WU (World Union). Then with 'world peace' sorted and less need for mega-military, we can pay for this, feed the world, run on renewables, kill pests (Cane-Toad, Wild pigs etc in Australia for example), accelerate the development of open source software (OK, that' one's a pet hobby horse), and eventually terra-form Mars.

 

But right now we can't even clean up our oceans.

I think it would depend on how it attacks any giving organism. I think if you look at it from say an energy web type of view you get transmission of pollution, so you end up consuming more toxins then normal, this also can have its own impact depending on specie, such as with a larger animal to a smaller one, or how many offspring they make.

If it attacks areas like coastal regions for instance, I think you deal again with a symptom all of its own. Basically I think it integrates into most every level of selection to some extent in regards to the biosphere.

Plus I would wonder how it would then work into geology cycles or phenomena. Such as what will increasing concentration of various polymers do to say transfer of salt in the ocean?

I think you begin to deal with larger but similar problems, such as with concentration of CO2 you have a warming problem, what will concentrations of plastic increasing yield, or how does that work? So maybe many global environmental problems have similar traits.

Very fun and will have to get.

The big ball level, or where the ball moves to block, I just put some balls down and angled a stick with the goal object so to be shot out somewhat like a spear.

well, modern rifles(particularly those used in combat eg. by a soldier) tend to be made as light as possible so they are easy to carry.

 

they do indeed deliver a larger kick than older heavier rifles.

 

but either of them, if held wrong can shatter your collar bone or dislocate your shoulder with ease if held in the wrong position.

I don’t know if it will break your bones, don’t know all the angles though. I know if you take a modern rifle and press your nose up to it such is rather painful, nothing broke though:D. Then again as pointed out a lot of this is rifle dependent.

Well if the plastic continues to flow into the oceans it will become more and more of an issue, one I don’t think anyone can afford to clean up. IF what exists now can be put into a timeframe of plastics birth to mass consumption I would think fifty more years of such would only increase the problems magnitude and duration.

Plus all of the plastic is a waste in terms of energy and resources put into processing it in the first place. American economical system is capitalist, so a company has to take a greater then usual risk floating something green, typically because it has higher costs associated to produce and again you have to count on a consumer base even being there.

Hybrid car technology I think represented the winning formula. Change as needed for various reasons has provided an economic desire to obtain a car for instance that gets better miles per gallon, so with that again I think a potential green product surely has to work economically, if it could do that I would wager more money would be risked producing such, again counting on a customer base.

Hydrogen economy cant exist because the technology is simply out of reach, its out of reach because big money will not fuel it as is. I do not think the big boom in hydrogen is going to occur with a home inventor, this is a much larger creature, as is a replacement to plastic for mass consumption, I also do not see much money going this way.

If memory serves plastic breaks down to some very tiny scale, I think particulate over time in the oceans. I think this process can also serve to concentrate pollutions and it is also taken up by other organisms and works its way up. The amount of plastic such as waste by people that can come to mass in the oceans for example is disturbing to say the least. Also it is a product possible of the fossil fuel system that is the parent of so many problems.

Science still struggles to understand the impact of chlorine to be honest, so I do not see how good of thing making plastic so abundant with such behavior is beneficial to humanity, not at least while it is showing so much of a negative trend.

Making products that have less of an impact I think is more apt to help such a situation more then simply trying to curb behavior of say a populous constantly.

I do not see why simply on a chemical level a material cannot be devised for mass production that can be recycled easily and efficiently, but to be honest with what could be a gold mine for innovation these days you find a market that really has no steam. The hybrid car market is only going to succeed I think, that is the automobile industry, or world domination. Yet in that I find that one of the prime motivations or reasons its possible in simple economics when it comes down to it, so any breakout product would I think have to work economically, this is why I said hemp primarily.

and that lost is the notion of a worldline. I know of plenty of things that are unchanged when going to QM. Those things aren't why I created this thread. Its those things which become meaningless that I'm interested in. Also, if something needs to redefined in QM then that in itself a strong indication that it might be meaningless in QM, hence the need for redefinition. The newly defined concept then becomes meaningful. But is not the same definition.

 

Perhaps I need to clarify more. Forget "lost" since it seems that term is either vauge or misleading. Instead consider the example I gave of the fact that classical physics uses trajectories (continuous position of particle with respect to time) is a well definend and meaningful concept in relativity while in its meaningles in QM. These serve as an illustrative examples of what I'm looking for. Seems that just asking the question has led me to think of answers I could't think of before.

 

Determinisim is another example of something that does not hold in QM. Force is another example in that force cannot be defined as the time rate of change in momentum, at least not in the Schrodinger picture. Momentum is an operator and in the Schrodinger picture operators are not functions of time so taking the derivatives of them is meaningless.

 

Another concepts is that of reality, e.g. to talk of the "actual" state of an object without reference to an observer in meaningless, e.g., "Cat is alive/Cat is dead" has no meaning unless an observation is made, unobserved position is also meaningless in quantum theory.

 

Pete

Where do I put the limit on observation though with QM. Such as with the observer effect, do I say just because I am not viewing such in some way in an experiment QM no longer holds? Such as with relativity, I would expect the universe as far as we understand it to still operate the same tomorrow when I wake up, such as the speed of light will still be constant, with QM though, do I think my stepping on the ground is turning into phonons, or do I say such is something else?

Could structured potential control chemical thermodynamics? I think for instance that if you have a medium which has two elements in it, one is hotter then the other the system will move to equilibrium. So could you control the flow of this, in regards to it playing out in chemical potential, reaction and bonding? I am just wondering on the potential to do chemistry from molding a system in which reaction is diving primarily by nothing more then movement towards equilibrium really.

I imagine that bonding behavior by electrons would have a close affinity in this for cause and effect or the system moving towards equilibrium correct? Yet I imagine I would have to do these experiments with reaction mechanisms for instance. So I would assume such would apply to biogeochemistry, such as finding more behavior from life from a molecular point of view in a variable environment in regards to thermodynamics.

To assume the origin of life held a physical mechanism or was a physical process I would think that a thermodynamic environment had to play a more crucial role, as a frozen or dead core to the earth would have produced a drastically different environment, in that no work would have been done really, not like how the earth is with tectonic plate movement for instance.

So in regards to origin of life, could I or really would I have to take into account thermodynamics in regards to the earth as a system or a biogeochemical perspective to model such to any extent? I know that endeavors into such tries not only to understand the earth as it was in the past but to use what theory thinks was the atmosphere for instance during such a time. Going from the hypothesis that life could have originated around or with volcanic sea vents communities and thermophilic bacteria for instance I would think such holds promise, yet in regards to nanotechnology and materials science thermodynamic “noise” may be a domination factor it appears when engineering on such a level, so how could you model such, but a cell for instance or a virus is hardly a single atom.

I think this question becomes so much more difficult if you also take into account that you might have to include QM, and surely with the chemical behavior you would. Being chemistry though is dependent on understanding of thermodynamics in many ways such as with enthalpy I would think that the chemistry that gives structure to life as we know it such as with DNA has to exist for understanding as it would pertain to how life originated.

So if we assume that the sea vent hypothesis is even close to legit, would that mean I could work with chemistry that can take place in a certain band of variables, the primary one being thermodynamics?

The anthropic principle doesn't say that life couldn't evolve anywhere but here. In this incarnation it means that it's meaningless to worry about the odds that conditions here were amenable to life, since we exist. If conditions were different, we wouldn't be here to argue about it.

That’s just the thing. Its giving some deterministic notion to the universe, how, or why?

I think to accept this you can say if the universe were different, toilets would not exist.

I mean what is the point of saying that, its just stupid. Plus so much lacks definition in it really for it to be called a principal, I mean it might rank as such if this were star wars the movie but really.

Basic fallacy in anthropic principle. How can it say life could never evolve in anything else but here? That question has no answer in this universe yet let alone a multiverse. Yes, life physically evolves, so to assume it did this via how our universe is I do not think even needs to evoke such a principal, otherwise I think to suggest that would require life to exist outside the physical universe, such as its laws, like a human being able to fall a 1000 feet with no injury. I would also think that such a statement means that the multiverse to infinity or whatever needs to be correct for our universe to exist, and toilets.

Then again life goes extinct, so the universe arthritically must exist to kill us via global warming with cars and indoor skiing.

Being American culture is so dependent on mass infrastructure could a way to attack a non green lifestyle be devised by more clever material schemes?

Say some polymer was developed, that with minimal energy requirements could be molded to a variety of purposes, and even have greater recycling capability? Now this may sound a bit like plastic, but plastic is hardly green and in terms of simple waste which returns to the earth in a very negative way to the biosphere for instance is hardly a grand solution. I would think though that material science does not have to stop at plastic, which is what I would like to discuss.

Could green materials for any purpose such as packaging make it in the real world? What are some viable candidates?

I personally think hemp is a great plant for use in industrial processes on down to clothes. Hemp farming is also legal in some states, which shows promise for a potential market.

 

Does anyone here who is following along have difficulty understanding the fact that situations exist where the possibility exists (in probability theory) of measuring exact values of a variable even when the uncertainty in that variable is non-zero?

 

Pete

No, but I think the gist of your argument is in relation to QM's formalism. In that case, to be brunt, is there any relationship between this and bells theorem, could I think hidden variables could be alive in a formalism sense?

Even if the technology they were using was cheap, there was a kind of consistency to the effect though, ecoli. That leads me to believe that it was external to the technology, like bad lighting and dust in conventional photography.

 

I've seen a lot of images of ghosts and UFOs on similar shows that were obviously an internal reflection in the lens, usually of the aperture, and this didn't seem like that.

If you put your hand on a wall even briefly and then pull it away you can see the heat still for a bit. So for as far as it goes there is a million "tricks" someone could pull to have something weird occur. I mean you are viewing a visual representation of thermal energy somewhat, so any variance in the environment in regards to such will register, someone could have put a little rod in the wall and then heated it up, or basically they could sit below the floor and let a hot gas such as a fart drift up.

Being a regular drinker of strong mugs of tea, I just wondered if it is posible that by heating and re-heating water, we may encourage the selection of mutations that become thermophilic? Pretty ridiculous, but I wondered if anyone has tested this out?

No, but if you are putting raw materials in there you might have some Tardigrada crawling around in your pot. They are pretty buff actually, but don’t happen to be microbes in what you are looking for.

As for selection coming on, I would just think that if you were to get a population to survive that environment which is cyclic to some extent more so in a thermodynamic sense, then you might find some change in phenotype, but that might not be due directly to mutation either. Cant bacteria survive harsher environments by becoming some type of a spore?

Yes, I believe evolutionary theory could be used to explain the wasp's ability to stand on a hose. Yet, a creationist would also offer an explanation for the wasp's ability to stand on a hose. How would either be more useful in practical research?

 

I guess what I'm getting at is, how do the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past, such as the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides, owe their existence to evolutionary theory? Would the researchers who achieved these great feats have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong?

Evolution is a theory primarily based on empirical evidence. It has support from a broad range of fields and an overwhelming amount of data to it in support of such overall. In really from a molecular on up in scale to ecological scale the study of evolution has support, there is no break inbetween say biochemistry and ecology that provides some other mechanism then evolution.

If evolution did not occur as it is held, something like phylogeny would be impossible to study. This can be physically studied and made empirical, such as with genetics, and it can be observed to occur in time via natural selection.

To add a creationist view like you are doing basically is to say all this occurs because of something supernatural really. Its supernatural because there is no way to study such a statement scientifically, which I think should pretty much restrict it from being in a scientific theory really. Else I think you should describe to me that somehow I am wrong.

Well this is a semantic issue. The questions wasn't can omnipotent being X lift anything, but rather can he create something that he can't lift. The negative is the affirmative here which is convoluted I know. But the being would be attempting to create something he can not lift, so failure is victory in this instance. The arbitrary frame of reference helps accomplish this.

 

I think we are saying the same thing now... it would always be possible to move the object, but at some point "lifting" becomes impossible because of the frame of reference.

 

Like I said, I was only looking for a cheap semantic victory over this supposed paradox to silence it

I think in order to answer this question the supernatural would have to become natural in order to have say physical properties. I do not think such a definition is possible in regards to a physical question like gravity, so what could your answer be?

How important would you think just brain activity for instance was for the evolution of mammals? In regards to life I think it would be staggering. If this behavior was being selected for down to a molecular/cellular level regularly which I think shows then how it played out in phenotypes is very interesting. Just how you as a human may think with a brain, what is the behavior like for say a population of rodents in a forest, if by chance thought is actually occurring in some form pertaining to the rats neurobiology down to a molecular/cellular level.

Basically from a multicellular tone I think I could view say neurons in any particular species as a type of cell working in concert with many others using say genes for instance to spawn phenotypes. So I could view possibly say its evolution in that sense parallel to say a specie? Such as in the evolution of bats, would brain function as modeled by selective pressures continue to hold impact in bat evolution, or could there be radical shifts in the animals behavior in relation to faster changing variables. Such as say some species you find heteropatric speciation occurring, could that entire change in possible evolutionary history pertain mainly to say brain activity in some species as more a phenotype lean or how well can evolutionary genetics in a population sense rule out brain behavior?

 

I am in doubt.

 

/Fredrik

I would like to insert positivism here, or really empirical standards. ON the basis you would accept having to learn or live which could bring about some ordered line of questioning like science; then what would you accept as proof that something in a platonic sense is some way?

I can in truth say that a human is susceptible to frostbite, however you want to word it what is there is that such can happen in reality regardless of human interpretation. So I think science has proved in some fashion we can make such statements of reality.

Falsification I think reduces modern theory to having to deal with its contemporary self constantly. I think it does not allow for you to go from A to C with no care for B, which is god of the gaps argument if you want.

Lastly if you took empirical testing from science you would ruin it really. Could you imagine a physics where only math and theoretical models based only on math existed, no testing of any of it at all ever?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism

Hi, I was wondering if you guys (and gals) could give me some insight into the practical importance of evolutionary theory?

Well, to put it simply biology cant or does not make any sense scientifically without it. Its not that people have not tried to say discredit evolution either from a scientific perspective or other, they do all the time and still cant. So I would say for that its prime practical importance is it allows humans to scientifically understand life to a far greater accuracy then without. This applies across the board to anything dealing with life to some extent, such as with medicine.

Also for what its worth being its part of the three natural sciences as labeled, those being biology, chemistry and physics, then it has to aid somehow in regards to the endeavor of human understanding for such.

Here is a nifty question and I would just like to ask if you think evolution could be used in its answer. A wasp like a yellowjacket lands on the side of a typical green garden hose, its body parallel with that hose, do you think evolution comes to bear in regards to the wasp slipping off the hose. Now think it could slip off into some danger such as a pool of water.

Basically there is no global notion of synchronising the clocks.

 

One possible way to synchronise the clocks is to have a light bulb exactly half way between the two clocks. Then you turn the light bulb on and each clock starts as soon as the light reaches them. Thus they appear to be synchronised.

 

However, from the point of view of a third observer, the clocks are not synchronised by doing this. Remember he will see the light travel a c in his frame. Thus (generally) the flash will hit one of the clocks before the other one as he sees it. Thus they are not synchronised.

 

Thus, we have no global notion of how to synchronise the clocks. The best that can be done it between only two specified frames. Therefore any construction like this depends on the frames employed and cannot be a relativistic construction.

Yes but how can you know when the light reached even the surface of the clock, how did it interact with this not only that but then the sensor would have to transmute such information I imagine electronically somehow for record.

I think maybe some quantum dots might be able to work but then how do you equate in uncertainty with that measurement being photons are being observed? It would seem you could never know that exact time of something in that if you want my opinion.